Avant-garde modular wizard Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard have teamed up for their new collaborative Neptunes EP, out on the Domino imprint Smugglers Way. Neptunes is the result of two electronic music powerhouses coming together to create new and thrilling sounds out of pure collaboration. With hard-hitting beats, intricate synth programming, and a melodic sensibility that retains a strange and alluring aura, it’s pure body-moving stuff that stimulates every neuron firing off in your brain.

Featuring a low-slung bassline, gorgeously wavering synths, and pleasingly chopped-up vocal samples, first single and title track “Neptunes” originates from Goddard’s desire to make a tune reminiscent of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo’s visionary, singular approach to hip-hop production as the Neptunes.

“I loved what the rhythm made me feel when I first heard it,” Smith says. “I actually thought he was tapping into Neptune as a planet, and the qualities I felt it possesses. So my side of things brought out more space-themed sounds as a result.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Joe Goddard - Neptunes
2. Joe Goddard - Rapid Fire (Feat. Laima)
3. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Around You
4. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Around You (Joe Goddard Remix)
5. Joe Goddard - Rapid Fire (Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Remix)

Joe Goddard has been thinking about thinking. For the past few years, the producer, songwriter, and all-round polymath of UK dance and indie music has been trying to get more in touch with his own intuition. “This idea of trying to divorce your conscious mind from the music-making process – not trying to force meaning on the music or your collaborators, allowing that process to be very empathetic.”

The wonderful result is his third solo album 'Harmonics', a record rooted in instinct and empathy. Across 14 tracks of left-of-centre dance music – touching on UK garage, house, hip-hop, pop, and disco – Goddard opens the floor for a number of collaborators. The voice of Ibibio Sound Machine’s Eno Williams rides the afro-house groove of 'Progress', while starry-eyed boom-bap track 'When Love’s Out of Fashion' features UK rapper Oranje. Former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe lends his uniquely expressive vocal to the low-slung house of 'Summon', and Joe’s Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle both appear on the gleaming half-step ballad 'Heal Your Mind'. Other guests on 'Harmonics' include Tom McFarland of the London dance-pop group Jungle, Bronx-raised singer Fiorious, Guinean vocalist Falle Nioke, and UK jazz musician Alabaster DePlume.

For all the collaborators that Joe brings into his world, there are a handful of solo songs like 'Follow Me' that capture the more reflective and inward-looking side of his music. “With all the different people on this record, I’ve been working on how to respect the contribution they make and not trying to be the one who has to lead everything,” Joe says. “That follows through into the songs where I’m singing. I tried to write words without having too much of an idea of what I’m trying to express, where I’m just writing a stream of consciousness.”

This openness towards collaboration and the acceptance of people’s individual human nuances is where 'Harmonics' gets its name from. The history of dance music is replete with words like ‘ecstatic’, ‘euphoric’, and ‘uplifting’ – but here, those words do not describe hands-in-the-air clichés, but the spiritual and human side that Joe explores in his music. “Part of the reason why I wanted to call this Harmonics is that I was trying to create something very inclusive and empathetic, something harmonious,” Joe says. “There’s a lot of aggressive division in the world, and I wanted this to be loving, romantic – and fun.” This is the soulful thread that runs through all of Joe Goddard’s favourite music – genres from soul and funk, to house and garage, that were born in Black America and adopted by the UK. Harmonics is not just a title but a promise fulfilled – an unbridled celebration of compassion, collaboration, and creation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully produced, warm electronic pieces that ooze pop sensibilities but without ever coming across too sickly, including a host of guest vocalists and continuing a legacy of beautiful songwriting from his Hot Chip tenure. There are moments of divine euphoria and arm-raising joy but equally, a good amount of room for rumination and unease. A beautifully paced, electronic pop gem.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moments Die Featuring Barrie
2. Progress Featuring Ibibio Sound Machine
3. Destiny Featuring Findia 4. New World (Flow) Featuring Fiorious
5. When Love’s Out Of Fashion Featuring Oranje
6. Follow You
7. On My Mind
8. Summon Featuring Hayden Thorpe
9. When You Call Featuring Findia
10. Out At Night
11. Mountains Featuring Alexis Taylor And Al Doyle
12. Ghosts Featuring Tom McFarland
13. Miles Away Featuring Falle Nioke
14. Revery Featuring Alabaster DePlume

In 2017 Joe Goddard released his second solo album Electric Lines, after spending the past 15 years as a member of Hot Chip, production and DJ duo The 2 Bears and founder of tastemaker dance record label Greco Roman.

This summer Goddard returns with two standalone singles, a double A-side 12”, in his own words: “I just want these next few 12"s to be simple club tools really... musically one is meant to be a deep house belter and the other is meant to be dark electro with a romantic touch- like the Boards of Canada mix of 'Midas Touch’”.

TRACK LISTING

So Much
Human Touch (Dub)

‘Electric Lines’, the new album from producer Joe Goddard, is all about connections. The title refers to the colourful cables that link the modules in his Eurorack synthesizer and to the invisible wires that run between all the different kinds of electronic music that he loves. An apt title for a record which brilliantly unites the strands of his prolific career: member of Hot Chip and The 2 Bears, songwriter, producer, DJ, Grammy award winning remixer and co-founder of the Greco-Roman label. Like Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx, Joe combines a thirst for experimentation, an instinctive understanding of the dancefloor and a love of left-of-centre pop music. ‘Electric Lines’ confirms his place in the front rank of British producers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Goddard superbly mixes the off-key rotating chord electronica of his day-job at Hot Chip with post-dubstep atmospherics and the warm vintage hum and twisted modulations of analogue synths. An epic journey (even more so in the extended CD version), and one worth undertaking. Brilliantly varied but resolutely enthralling synth 'tronica.

TRACK LISTING

‘Electric Lines’
Ordinary Madness
Lose Your Love
Home
Lasers
Human Heart
Children
Truth Is Light
Nothing Moves
Electric Lines
Music Is The Answer

Bonus 12” (With Indies Exclusive LP Only)
Bumps
Funk You Up
Lose Your Love (Full
Length Version)